Sunday, October 23, 2011

The first Saturday in October Jon and I headed over to Nebraska City to check out all the fall fun. We spent the morning at Arbor Day Farm exploring their trails (although enjoyable, definitely kid-oriented) and picking our own apples. We then headed into town for lunch, and spent some time window shopping in all their antique shops. It was a fun fall getaway, and a great way to spend a Saturday together! On the way home we picked up a pumpkin so Jon could make his favorite fall treat-roasted pumpkin seeds-and I roasted the pumpkin with the delicious result of spicy pumpkin soup that we enjoyed later in the week.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

This was taken the same night as the reveal party...since Carla knew before the rest of us what we were having she brought us a little bag of newborn boy stuff from Evan, so that's a blue and white striped onesie sitting on my belly :) Not sure why I grabbed the baseball-we aren't too crazy about gender-specific stereotypes, but baseball is one of the things my dad loves, and if I had to choose a favorite sport, it'd be that one!

Another long day but definitely getting bigger :)

Jon had a little fun with this photo shoot :)

Things are getting really fun in pregnancy, because it's pretty obvious that I'm pregnant :) I'm getting lots of "I know I shouldn't ask this, but are you expecting?" questions. The little guy is moving around a ton...I always feel movement in the mornings right when I wake up, and almost always in the evenings, either after dinner or as we are going to bed. He's working on sleep cycles in the womb right now, sleeping about 12-14 hours at a time, and there's definitely a more distinguished pattern to the movement! Since the movement is more increased, Jon gets to feel more...one time in bed he was laying with his head on my belly and got kicked in the ear :)

We're working on nursery colors and names now that we know what we are having. And no, we aren't sharing names until the baby's born, sorry everybody! I can tell you that the middle name is definite (I thought of it-and it is SO PERFECT!-the night we found out we were having a boy) and we're still deciding between two names for the first name.

Overall I'm still feeling pretty great, even on the days when I don't sleep well the night before I still seem to have this unexplained energy source, I can only hope that keeps up since our semester isn't quite halfway over! And, it's CRAZY to think about...but we're only a few weeks away from starting the third trimester! I'm beginning to feel what I'm sure will be more discomfort during that time-lots of back pain, difficulty getting comfortable while I sleep, and needing to get up and stretch lots when I have to sit for longer periods of time. Oh yeah, and less and less room in my belly, especially when I try to eat something resembling a full meal :)

In case you're entirely disconnected from me in any other way (facebook, email, or the good ol' telephone) then I guess this is news to you...It's a boy! Sorry I've taken so long to put this up, but here's some fun pictures and an update about our reveal party from a few weeks back.

First, the logistics: I guess the reveal party was my idea, but Jon went along with it :) I thought it would be a little more fun to be able to share the news alongside our parents and the friends that could gather, rather than finding out at our appointment and then calling/texting everyone with the results. It definitely built up the anticipation, too!

When we decided to do this, I talked with my friend Carla who bakes some awesome cakes to see if she would be willing to bake us a cake so that we could find out what we're having when we cut into the cake (the color of the frosting on the inside would tell us if we were having a boy or a girl...we were praying it wouldn't be purple or orange, or something like that!). She did an AMAZING job with the cake:

We had the gathering at my parent's house, and Jon's parents were able to be there, too, along with some of our Des Moines-area friends Dan and Rebecca (newlyweds!), Liz and Eric, Carla, Eric, and Evan, and some good neighbor friends I've known Forever-Libbey and Emily. We also skyped my sister in since she's hanging out in Brussels all year. We enjoyed some dinner, talked and hung out/caught up on life a bit, and then it was time for the big reveal...

(I upped the saturation A LOT so it was a little more obvious what's on the inside, our camera colors were a little out of whack that night!)

We were both shocked! For whatever reason, we'd both really been thinking girl, so when we pulled out the piece of cake with blue frosting, it really took us both by surprise! Someone else has some really fun pictures of me cutting into the cake, and there's a video of Jon's wonderfully shocked face when we found out-but uploading has not been our friend with that one!

It was so fun to be able to share this moment with everyone who was there. Here's some more pictures from the night:

Jon and his dad, anxiously awaiting the results (and Chip gettin' some lovin...)

one of the cuties my little boy gets to grow up with and call "friend"

So again, this picture would be way cooler if the color on our camera had been behaving (ok, really it's just us still learning how to use it...) but maybe someday I can get in there with Photoshop and make that frosting more brilliant! But...here's our happily ever after picture :)

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I'm a happily married, recent seminary graduate, serving in full time ministry in Nebraska. Trying to live out God's call on my life, which right now happens to look like pursuing ordination as an Elder in the United Methodist Church. I love (almost) every minute of it, and those I don't love, seem to be the ones that teach me the most.